After two months away, I’m still not exactly sure how to approach this space, except that I plan to broaden the scope to include more than just art topics. We’re transitioning into homeschooling here, something that comes, overall, as a huge relief to me. This space seems to be the best place, for the time-being, to share our life-learning adventures. Blogging is still just a hobby for me, so I don’t have the time or energy right now to figure out if I want to change the hosting service/domain/web address…I think it’s best, anyway, to see how it all evolves. I’ll work on updating the pages and adding new ones as time allows.

In the meantime, we’ve had sun, sun, and more sun here, and we’re enjoying our usual summer activities. Our summers tend to focus on exploring the environments we like best: where the ocean meets the land. So there is a lot of this sort of thing going on:

In the salt pond, early morning

We like to visit our favorite rocky shore to explore tide pools, too.

The sea star population is down this year, and the invasive Asian shore crab is seemingly everywhere. Fortunately there are still plenty of hermit crabs, a favorite of ours.

Little hermit crabs

We are balancing our day trips and beach days with lazier days at home, with lots of time to relax, too.

Summer reading at its best

It’s a good rhythm, for the most part, one I was sorry to leave behind when school began last fall. I’m looking forward to carrying more of this peaceful rhythm through the year than I was able to last year.

Meanwhile, I hope you’ll come along on this transition. I plan to share what we’re doing and the resources we’re using and where my heart lies when it comes to education…as well as continue to share any art-related adventures and inspirations along the way. And I hope you’re having a fabulous summer so far!

Reminder: All text and photos copyright Amy Hood. I love to spread the word about great art experiences for kids, don't you? You may use a photo to link back to a specific activity or post, but if you'd like to use more than one photo or any text, please contact me first: kidsinthestudio at gmail dot com. Thank you!